3 Strategies for Horse Riding Confidence

Hi, today I’m going to be talking about
3 effective strategies to help horse riders feel calm and confident. For those of you who don’t know me already,
I’m Anne Gage of Confident Horsemanship and I help passionate horse lovers move from
feeling fearful and frustrated to having calm, confident and connected partnerships with
their horses. So, if you’re joining me live just let me
know you’re here and that you can hear me by either clicking on the like or heart or
– actually you can comment where you’re from. Because it’s great to know where I’m reaching
people. And if you know someone else who would benefit from this video – from this broadcast
– then please tag them in the comments. And I’m just going to share this out to my group
if I can. So that my Confident Horsemanship Community can also get this live broadcast.
So, just bear with me for a moment. While we see if my internet will cooperate and let
me do this. When you’re in the country … And I’m back! Yay!
So, let me know if you’re hearing me, where you’re from or “I can hear you” in the comments.
That would be great. And let me know where you’re watching from. And if you’re watching
the REPLAY then type “replay” in the comments. That would be great.
So, as I said, I’m going to share 3 strategies with you that you can use to feel calm and
confident when you’re working around your horse or riding your horse.
But first, it’s important to understand how our brains Because our brains are … So,
our brains are programmed to focus on the negative. And that’s in order to keep us
safe. So, that when we do something that gives us
a negative experience – whether that’s physically or emotional pain – then our
brain quickly stores that experience and can get triggered if it thinks we’re going be
heading down a similar path. So, we … So, we tend to focus more on what went wrong
than on what went right – whether that’s in our daily lives or with our horses. Let me know if you can relate to that. Just
type in the comments “yes I can relate”. Here’s an example, if you’ve ever seen a photo
or video of yourself riding or doing some other activity, what’s the first thing you
notice? Well, typically people will start to point out all the things that they’re doing
wrong or not good enough or even, you know, their hair is out of place or something. And if you’re like most people that’s what
you’re going to focus on is the “bad” stuff or the negative stuff. So, type in the comments
if you – yes – if you can relate to that or if you’ve experienced these negative mind
movies or … so you’ll have memories of situations or experiences that run like videos or audios
in your brain … and they replay over and over and over again. Just type yes in the comments if you experience
these negative mind movies or radio stories. The good news is that we can retrain our brains.
We can over-ride this programming. So, let’s jump into the 3 strategies that I’m going
to share. Strategy #1 is to anchor something positive.
So, you might have a song that sometimes comes on the radio that instantly pops you back
to a happy time. And you immediately start to feel better just because you’re hearing
that song. Well, that’s a positive anchor. So you can use something visual or auditory
or a touch to bring you out of feeling negative and into feeling positive. So, if you think
about a time when you felt really relaxed, calm, confident and positive as you listen
to a song or hear the song playing in your head or you see a cue – a physical cue – it
could be your horse’s browband. Then as the as the positive emotion intensifies or intensify
those emotions in your mind. And as you’re doing that – as you’re starting to feel the
positive emotions – press your forefinger and your thumb together. And while those positives
are really – those emotions, those feelings are really intense keep pressing together.
And as they start to subside then release the thumb and the forefinger. And what you’ve
just created is a resource anchor. So, that when you start to feel anxious you put that
thumb and finger together and it’ll flip the feeling. You’ll start to feel more positive.
More calm. More confident. Whatever positive emotion you’ve attached to that trigger. Strategy #2. Is expand your peripheral vision.
So you may of heard of Sally Swift and she talks about in her book, Centred Riding, having
“soft eyes”. And with soft eyes rather than having sort of tunnel vision, you open
up your vision. And so you can see more on the periphery. Something we do naturally when
we daydream. And you can practice it so it becomes more natural for you. But it’s that
hazy, defocused vision – right – that you get when you’re daydreaming. So, when anxiety or negative thoughts surface,
we drop out of peripheral vision and we go into more tunnel vision. If you .. you may
have experienced this when you’ve been really scared, and your vision sort of really shuts
down. But, the thing is that your brain can’t hold
onto a negative feeling or a negative thought and hold that peripheral vision at the same
time. So, if you practice peripheral vision that’s a really quick way to bring you out
of feeling anxious or negative. Strategy #3 is to change the voice of your
inner dialogue. We all have this running train of thoughts – this inner dialogue conversation
going on in our heads. And, if you -Have you ever inhaled helium? Just type “yes” in the
comments if you’ve ever inhaled helium. It’s impossible to be serious or to feel anxious
when you’re talking with a helium infused voice or hearing somebody else doing it. So,
if you give that voice … So imagine your inner voice that very unhelpful inner voice
– has the voice of a cartoon character like Donald Duck or Miss Piggy or Yosemite Sam
or Daffy Duck or something crazy like that. You wouldn’t take it very seriously. Right?
So, Strategy #1 was to anchor something positive or create a positive anchor. Strategy #2 … expand
your peripheral … out of feeling anxious to feeling more calm. And Strategy #3 give
that crazy – that unhelpful inner voice some sort of silly cartoon or helium infused voice
so that you’re not taking it so seriously. So, share in the comments what would happen
if you had effective strategies like these that helped you to focus on enjoying ride
– on feeling calm and confident. On having positive outcomes and being able to release
negative emotions attached to past experiences? What would that be like for you? Do you think
you’d be more confident? When you have these strategies, you – like
my clients – stop feeling anxious and fearful and really do start enjoying riding again.
You feel calm and confident and able to move forwards towards achieving your goals. So, I’d really appreciate it that if you got
value from this FREE broadcast then I want you to know that you get much more – I go
much more indepth in my new program Winning The Confidence Game. If you want to be a confident
horse rider and enjoy riding then I encourage you to register for the program. And, I’m
going to put the link in the comments so you can go check it out. This is a 6 week online group coaching program
that’s starting in January. And here’s what I’m going to teach you:
You’re going to stop the negative thinking that’s holding you back so that you can
spend more time feeling positive and confident. You’re going to retrain your brain to focus
on positive outcomes so that you can see and believe in a positive future.
And you’re going to let go of the negative emotions that are keeping you traumatized.
The negative emotions that may be attached … So, you’re going to have the ability to
let go of negative emotions that are keeping you traumatized – those emotions that are
perhaps connected to past experiences where you suffered a trauma of some sort.
You’re going to have the ability to change anxiety into excitement in just moments.
And, you’re going to get unstuck and move forward. And you’re going to have a plan for
moving forward. There will be a weekly training video. There
will be a weekly live call with me and the other people in the program where you can
have the opportunity to ask your questions and get my support. And there will be a private
Facebook group just for people … And there’ll be a private Facebook group just for people
taking the course where you’ll also get my support.
So, I really don’t want you to continue to struggle with your confidence in 2019.
And if that’s not what you want for yourself. If you want to get unstuck, move forward and
enjoy riding then I encourage you to check out Winning The Confidence Game. . Good bye for now.